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LETS BEGIN IN 2010

A tradition with a pure, appealing essence

UNION-TRIBUNE EDITORIAL

November 22, 2007

Thanksgiving's arrival is always accompanied by editorials that are either cheerily sentimental encomiums to multigenerational family gatherings, patriotic riffs on the holiday's meaning to America, or downbeat musings about how the gluttony associated with the day is some sort of national metaphor. Beyond that, Thanksgiving doesn't just signal the imminent arrival of the Christmas shopping season; it also kicks off pundits' related annual grousing about America's supposed soulless materialism.

Our point is that there isn't much new left to say. But we will try anyway, with this observation as a starting point: Today, among many other things, we should give thanks for ... Thanksgiving. It is the holiday with perhaps the purest and most appealing essence, one that calls on everyone to appreciate and be thankful for all that is good in our lives.

This message may seem banal. Yet in an era of gadgets and cell phones and texting – one that seems more frantic and distracting by the day – it couldn't be more relevant.

Many Americans think the Thanksgiving tradition originated with the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock, but the Old Testament mentions the Feast of Weeks – like Thanksgiving, a celebration of the harvest. Romans, Greeks, Anglo-Saxons and Celts held similar celebrations in the Middle Ages.

Still, there is an American twist on this tradition: Our leaders chose to most firmly embrace it in times of great doubt and fear. The modern practice of celebrating a national day of Thanksgiving in late November was begun by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 during the Civil War, the most calamitous event in U.S. history. Congress and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt made Thanksgiving a permanent holiday in 1941, on the eve of the U.S. entry into already-raging World War II, the most calamitous event in world history.

Perhaps there are other, more quotidian reasons for the timing. But we hope the inspiration was at least partly the realization that even in the worst of times, Americans have much to be thankful for. Happy Thanksgiving.

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me@rescam.org

24th November, Australian Federal Election.
Australia votes, we have a change of Government.

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Join Calm Chaos

What about the drafting of all young Americans for a year or two of national service?

As if the capitalists don't already have total control over that:

Want them in the military? Don't let them work!
Don't want them in the military, Let them work!
Want them out of your hair? Don't let them in the military and don't let them work!

Funny how the capitalist collective mind works... ;)

(Despite the whole 'good guy bad guy' thing, government and corporate america are more tightly woven than one might think.)

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It may not be 1984 but George Orwell sure did see the future . . .

What about the drafting of all young Americans for a year or two of national service?

As if the capitalists don't already have total control over that:

Want them in the military? Don't let them work!
Don't want them in the military, Let them work!
Want them out of your hair? Don't let them in the military and don't let them work!

Funny how the capitalist collective mind works... ;)

(Despite the whole 'good guy bad guy' thing, government and corporate america are more tightly woven than one might think.)

You sound paranoid. Who exactly in reality are these people you talk about? Where are the facts to support your claims of these conspiracies? Who's organizing this for the 'capitalist purpose'? How are 'they' accomplishing all of these things?

How are they getting the lefties to propose these mandatory service ideas?

Usually what you've been posting are just cynical baseless assertions.

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

You sound paranoid.

Remember the tv show cheers? The 'place where everybody knows your name'... The most important lesson that I've learned after migrating from one end of this country to the other is that 'local tv isn't so local'... Something I would expect from cable tv but not from local tv... Isn't that why they call it local? Maybe my amplified antenna is just much more powerful than I've been led to believe... Add to that, cell phones, email, the internet, and all the data bases out there nowadays, and this world is even smaller than it used to be... Don't you ever get 'personalized junk mail'? Ever wonder how people who you've never met know who you are, where you live, and what your interests are? Personally, I like the 'infosearches', they know everywhere that I've ever been, and even places that I haven't been... Oops, bad intel? Funny thing is, I never gave out any of that info... In fact, my 'secret' ss number, which isn't so secret anymore, apparantly tells all... Even on these very boards some have slipped up and proved my point that people know far more than they should about me, including yourself... Of course, some of it could be obtained from my IP address, but wait, aren't we all just 'ordinary posters' here... Methinks you need to meditate on my sig for a while before you start calling me 'paranoid'... ;)

(To me, this stuff is so obvious that it kinda befuddles me as to why I even have to explain it to others.)

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It may not be 1984 but George Orwell sure did see the future . . .

I'm not sure what you mean really. I personally have better things to do than go around googling seti cafe posters. I haven't commented on anything about you unless it was in response to something already in discussion. I don't know what others may have done to you though. I wouldn't be surprised however, one poster discussed having had trouble digging up dirt on me via Google in here so I'm sure that goes on.

As far as IP sniffers are concerned, if I'm not mistaken an admininstrator (D.Anderson maybe) has posted somewhere in here that the use of these little spy devices are not at all permitted.

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

I'm not sure what you mean really.

That's because you're looking too far into the insignificant details while overlooking the blatantly obvious... ;)

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It may not be 1984 but George Orwell sure did see the future . . .

What about the drafting of all young Americans for a year or two of national service?

As if the capitalists don't already have total control over that:

Want them in the military? Don't let them work!
Don't want them in the military, Let them work!
Want them out of your hair? Don't let them in the military and don't let them work!

Funny how the capitalist collective mind works... ;)

(Despite the whole 'good guy bad guy' thing, government and corporate america are more tightly woven than one might think.)

You sound paranoid. Who exactly in reality are these people you talk about? Where are the facts to support your claims of these conspiracies? Who's organizing this for the 'capitalist purpose'? How are 'they' accomplishing all of these things?

How are they getting the lefties to propose these mandatory service ideas?


Usually what you've been posting are just cynical baseless assertions.

The return of the Draft is inevitable given the current world situaton.

I don't see a draft happening - at present I don't see it as necessary, but I admit the Chinese are getting a bit scary.

I would much rather serve with a volunteer than a draftee and have done both.

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Man - a creature made at the end of the week's work when God was tired. - Mark Twain

I don't see a draft happening - at present I don't see it as necessary

They saw it necessary to raise the cutoff age to 42... It's just a matter of time... ;)

(They don't need a 'draft', if they want you, they'll simply deny you employment until you make 'the right choice'.)

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It may not be 1984 but George Orwell sure did see the future . . .

How are they getting the lefties to propose these mandatory service ideas?

Maybe you haven't noticed, but the 'righties' are in control, and us 'lefties' are under their rule... ;)

(It's not a 'conspiracy', it's 'tyranny'.)

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It may not be 1984 but George Orwell sure did see the future . . .

Security billing case puts Giuliani on hot seat

By Glen Johnson
ASSOCIATED PRESS

November 30, 2007

CONCORD, N.H. – The revelation that security costs for Rudy Giuliani's trysts with Judith Nathan were spread to obscure New York accounts exposes the former mayor to harsh questions his campaign wanted badly to avoid – about character, truthfulness and a penchant for secrecy.

Conservatives who were already troubled by Giuliani's support for abortion rights and gay rights have further reason to wonder about the thrice-married candidate's morality.

Republicans seeking a candidate who can challenge Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton on issues of integrity may feel betrayed.

People who argue that Giuliani overplays his anti-terrorism experience can wonder whether it was security – or protection from prying eyes – he was receiving in the Hamptons.

And voters wary of the Bush administration's secrecy might be concerned about a candidate who, at minimum, surrounds himself with people who refused to answer questions when confronted with evidence suggesting the security costs were being squirreled away.

Giuliani aides who refused any prepublication comment for the original story on Politico.com later offered a string of defenses, starting with the mayor of New York needs around-the-clock police protection.

Yesterday, Joe Lohta, who was deputy mayor and budget director under Giuliani, said the billing practice was necessary because the police officers did not make a lot of money and their department took up to two months to repay them for their travel expenses. So Giuliani's office got a credit card and paid it off with funds from the various agencies.

The practice, though, was not used by David Dinkins, who preceded Giuliani, or Michael Bloomberg, his successor.

Throughout his candidacy, Giuliani has sought blanket absolution for his foibles. He has also stated to potential supporters, as he did in his first campaign commercial, “they're not going to find perfection” in his candidacy.

But the security-billing story raises questions about whether people will be satisfied by such answers, especially from a White House candidate running in large part on his law-and-order credentials.

The records show Giuliani making his first trip to the Long Island community of Southampton, where Nathan had a condominium, from Aug. 31 to Sept. 1, 1999 – well before the former mayor acknowledged the breakdown of his second marriage in the spring of 2000.

There were 10 more trips before Giuliani left office on Jan. 1, 2002, including visits every weekend in August 2001, as well as the 2001 Labor Day holiday.

Security costs for those trips were charged to agencies like the New York City Loft Board, which regulates loft apartments. It was billed $34,000. The Office for People with Disabilities was charged $10,000, while the Assigned Counsel Administrative Office, which provides lawyers for indigent defendants, was charged roughly $400,000.

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me@rescam.org

U.S. economy experiences 51 straight months of job growth.

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

Free the market; Government interference hampers healthcare reform
By Yaron Brook and Keith Lockitch
November 26, 2007

The Democratic presidential candidates are agitating to have the government do something about the spiraling cost of healthcare, especially the cost of health insurance, which is becoming prohibitively expensive for millions of Americans.

Insinuating that the free market has failed to produce affordable health insurance, they offer a variety of government "solutions," including proposals for universal coverage that range from systems of mixed public and private insurance plans to the outright socialism of a single-payer system.

But these proposals cannot and will not cure our ailing medical system because they misdiagnose the disease: It is not the free market that has caused the healthcare crisis, it is government interference in medicine.

The notion that America has a private, free-market medical system is a widespread misconception. More than 45% of total spending on healthcare in 2004 was government spending. Our semisocialist blend of Medicare, Medicaid and government-controlled, employer-sponsored health plans-with its onerous system of regulations and controls on medical providers-is the opposite of a free market.

Our system is built not on the premise that each individual is responsible for his own well-being and healthcare, but on the premise that healthcare is the collective responsibility of "society." Our system aims to relieve the individual of the "burden" of paying for his own healthcare by coercively imposing its costs on his neighbors. Far from being consistent with American individualism, this is the essence of collectivism.

In a system in which medical care seems free or is artificially inexpensive, with someone else paying for one's healthcare, medical costs spiral out of control because we are encouraged to demand medical services without having to consider their real price. For every dollar's worth of hospital care a patient consumes, that patient pays only about 3 cents out of pocket; the rest is paid by third-party coverage. And for the healthcare system as a whole, patients pay only about 14%.

Government-run healthcare, in particular, has fueled explosive cost increases. Prior to the inception of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965, healthcare spending was less than 6% of the gross domestic product. Today, it is 16%, one-sixth of the U.S. economy-with Medicare alone accounting for half the growth in healthcare expenditures. As spending explodes, the government cracks down by enacting coercive measures: price controls on medical services, cuts to medical benefits and a crushing burden of regulations on every aspect of the healthcare system.

These controls and regulations make it harder to offer medical services profitably, burying doctors, nurses and other providers in bureaucratic red tape and ultimately driving them out of the field. Drug companies are forced to cut back on the development of new drugs. Insurance companies are forced to restrict their policies. The shrinking supply of medical services, combined with an artificially increased demand, drives costs and insurance premiums still higher. This leads, in turn, to cries for still more government controls, which cause even more problems, and so on and so on, in a vicious cycle of destruction.

The Democratic candidates' proposals are just the latest iteration of this cycle-an attempt to solve the problems in our healthcare system by enacting the same kinds of destructive measures that caused the problems in the first place.

Although the proposals are couched in such positive-sounding euphemisms as "guarantee universal coverage," "ensure better preventive care," "modernize record-keeping," and "reduce waste and inefficiency"-there should be no doubt that what they would mean in practice is a massive expansion in government interference and further distortions of the free-market mechanisms that keep quality up and costs down.

Consider, for example, the goal of modernizing the healthcare system. It would be one thing for hospitals, doctors' offices, and insurance companies to modernize their procedures and record-keeping voluntarily, because they judged it an effective way to boost their productivity. It is a very different thing to attempt to impose "modernization" by government decree. All it can possibly mean in practice is a new flurry of regulations forcing medical providers to adopt government-approved technology, whether they have a use for it, overseen by a new government bureaucracy with all of its inevitably attendant inefficiency and waste. This would be like putting Amtrak in charge of modernizing train service.

Or consider the issue of universal coverage. A proper approach to healthcare reform would address the problem of skyrocketing insurance premiums by uprooting its fundamental cause: the shifting of responsibility for healthcare costs away from the consumers of medical services. A proper approach would remove the bizarre incentives that created our current employer-based system; lift the regulatory chains stifling the health insurance industry; and inaugurate a gradual phase-out of all government insurance programs, especially Medicare and Medicaid. Instead, the Democratic candidates propose to force businesses, insurance companies and taxpayers to simply shoulder the extra costs of herding every single American into our current collectivist system.

The solution to the healthcare crisis brought about by our hyper-regulated, collectivist medical system is not more regulation and more collectivism. We must remove government from medicine and put an end to the system that forces us to pay for other people's healthcare.

In freer industries, such as computers or shoes, there is no crisis of affordability or quality, because people don't demand free computers or shoes as a "right" to be enforced by government decree. We need to recognize that the same should apply to medicine; there is no right to healthcare-to be provided at others' expense. We must reject the proposals to expand collectivized healthcare-the Democrat proposals as well as those of the Republicans, who pay lip service to the free market but offer no fundamental changes to our current collectivized system.

What we need is a true free market in medicine, one in which the government's only role is to protect the individual rights of doctors, patients, hospitals and insurance companies to deal with one another voluntarily.

Yaron Brook is president and executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, Irvine, Calif. Keith Lockitch is a resident fellow at the institute.

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!